Khodorkovsky verdict delayed

The verdict in Russia's most controversial post-Soviet trial of billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been delayed by three weeks, a move announced yesterday in a simple unsigned note pinned to the door of a Moscow courthouse.

The abrupt postponement until May 16 of a verdict on the Kremlin critic saves Vladimir Putin from considerable embarrassment during events on May 9 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VE day.

The president has invited dozens of world leaders to Moscow for the occasion, including President George Bush and other vocal critics of the treatment of Mr Khodorkovsky and his oil firm, Yukos.

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said last week in Moscow that Washington would watch the outcome of his trial on fraud and tax evasion charges to "see what [it] says about the rule of law in Russia".

He was arrested in October 2003, in the first move by the Kremlin to dismantle the private fortunes that held sway over politics in the 1990s.

In December Yukos's largest production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, was auctioned off to pay a £21.5bn tax bill.

Yesterday a Moscow court official told Interfax that the trial delay was because the judge had yet to finish "writing down" her verdict.

Defence lawyers said they had been given no explanation; the judge's verdict, if guilty, will be delivered together with her sentence, and the lawyers believe it would be punitive. One of Mr Khodorkovsky's lawyers, Robert Amsterdam, said: "They are not even trying to hide that this is a political case being micro-choreographed for maximum impact."

The delay suggested a "negative outcome and perhaps a lengthy incarceration", and May 16 might be a "false date", with the verdicts being delayed further "They are trying to wear down the media's interest in the case. It's all about news management."

Mr Putin, facing domestic criticism over Yukos and failed benefit reforms, forged ahead yesterday with efforts to restore Russia's diplomatic gravitas, with the first trip in 40 years to Egypt by a Russian or Soviet leader. He called for a summit of the Middle East quartet of Russia, the US, the UN and the EU and urged the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq.